Dr. Robert Spitzer Apologizes to Gay Community for Infamous ‘Ex-Gay’ Study

Today, in a letter to Dr. Ken Zucker obtained exclusively by Truth Wins Out, Dr. Robert Spitzer made an unprecedented apology to the gay community — and victims of conversion therapy in particular — for his infamous, now-repudiated 2001 study that claimed some “highly motivated” gay people could go from gay to straight:

Several months ago I told you that because of my revised view of my 2001 study of reparative therapy changing sexual orientation, I was considering writing something that would acknowledge that I now judged the major critiques of the study as largely correct. After discussing my revised view of the study with Gabriel Arana, a reporter for American Prospect, and with Malcolm Ritter, an Associated Press science writer, I decided that I had to make public my current thinking about the study. Here it is.